Nick Boucart


Title: Data Driven Product Management: product management meets devops

Abstract:

Ever wondered how “Clash of Clans” could make $5M/day with a “free” game? Or why Netflix has insane customer support? That’s because they “design for valorization”, not just functionality. This talk will introduce data driven product management as one of the key functions in modern tech companies.

Description:

It’s hard to be a successful software company today: sure, lean startup told us to build MVP’s,* Open Source* and the Cloud provides us with building blocks galore to build and run large, complex applications, the DevOps community gave us plenty of tools and insights to make sure these large apps run smoothly. All this makes it easier to build and launch a good software product. No wonder that today’s users are spoiled with gorgeous apps that are available 24x7, for (almost) free. That’s why a modern software company needs to “design for valorisation”, i.e. actively design, implement, test and measure how they make money. Take games like Clash of Clans: these “free to play” games contain many mechanics that keep players play. By buying virtual money via in-app purchases, players speed up their progress. Behind the scenes though, this whole experience is measured, analysed and fine-tuned to ensure that players don’t get too annoyed with the slow, unpaid progress, yet are incentivised enough to buy the credits. For Netflix, operating in a very competitive market, with a technical infrastructure that is far from trivial, every $7.99 counts. That’s why they listen so much to customers, and why their customer support is stellar. [Remember this Star Trek story?] (http://imgur.com/e0LcT6J) Setting up a working designing for valorisation strategy requires strong analytics, a lot of data science, experiments and probably above all, a strong view on how users experience your product or service. This is traditionally the role of software product manager. In this talk, we’ll discuss how IMHO a modern (SaaS) software product manager should look at her job, how she can leverage DevOps practices on the product level and I’ll end with some tips and advice on how to start.

Speaker

Nick Boucart

Nick Boucart

@nickboucart

Nick Boucart is senior technology advisor Software Engineering and ICT at Sirris. His main goal is to help software entrepreneurs grow, by working on the crossroads of technology, business and engineering. Brainstorming about new concepts, products and services, searching for ways to validate and implement these ideas, finding public funding and research opportunities, these are just a few of the things Nick does for his clients. He is especially interested in helping software entrepreneurs transform their current business models into SaaS format, whilst taking into account the latest in agile, lean startup and developer tools and practices. His background as a developer helps him understand the technical implications of putting a software product to the market. He is an interim CTO for startups that lack in-house technical skills. He’s a junior growth hacker especially interested in engineered, data-driven product management.